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DRAGON BALL Z #21 - - Watch & Learn
Now, there’s one funny thing that really stuck out to me about this
episode. It might even help support a larger point about how long-running
serials like this put other stories into perspective. Bear with me for a sec -
- I promise this will make sense. See, the scenes in question is when Oolong brings up the rather logical question of why Master Roshi doesn’t just use the Dragon
Balls to wish the Saiyans away.
I generally tend to give more credit to the broad strokes of a story
when I’m critiquing it. That is, if a show pulls off a couple thing
spectacularly well - - or if it’s heart seems to be mostly in the right place - - then that
generally makes up for any of my smaller, more detail-specific grievances. I’ve
been thinking about this a little more lately, because there’s basically a whole
corner of this pop culture blogosphere (or whatever we want to call it)
that makes its bones off nitpicking every new blockbuster to pieces as soon as
it’s out.
Sure, there are plenty of times where a flick has plot holes that are
too big to ignore because they’re borne out of laziness on the storytellers’
part. However, I’m sure you all know
somebody who loves to walk out of a movie and just scoff dismissively about
minor things that nobody really gives a shit about.
There isn’t enough room to get as detailed as we probably need to get here but, to put it simply, most ‘plot holes’ are just basic conceits of
dramatic license, as far as I reckon. Would it make more sense for NASA to send a team of trained
astronauts to drill that asteroid instead of a bunch of oil riggers? Yeah, sure…
and it’d be lot less interesting to watch. And if the movie went out of
its way to run through a bunch of well-reasoned, logical explanations to qualify it,
holy shit, would that slow the pace down.
Long-running shonen series, though? Well, they’ve got oodles of time
and space, don’t they? Which is why you have time for Oolong to raise the sort
of logical concern that the smarks would have - - and boy, doesn’t that bit
of dialog seem like some unnecessarily expository? This is what would happen if every show were concerned about throwing bones to the nitpickers instead of just running
with the story.
Watch this episode, “Counting Down" here and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the
previous episode here.
About the Author
 | Tom Pinchuk’s a writer and personality with a large number of comics, videos and features like this to his credit. Visit his website - - tompinchuk.com - - and follow his Twitter: @tompinchuk |
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